Week 4: Activity Post Prompt

Title: Choose an episode of True Life dealing with a medical condition from this list [link] to analyze for this activity post and write the title of it (e.g. “I have schizophrenia”)

***If you pick an episode that does not directly correspond with a bio-medically recognized illness (e.g. “I am a shopoholic”), you need to explain exactly why you interpreted this to be a “medical condition” and this episode to be reflective of an “illness narrative” in your blog post. Otherwise you will not get points for your post.***

Body: (300 words)

Summarize the episode and identify the following themes:

Type of narrative (Restitution, Chaos, Quest)

Use of narrative

Culture and Stigma

Experiences with medical professionals

The sick role – rights and responsibilities

Discuss the usefulness of illness narratives to patients/family/healthcare providers – cite materials from this week to support your answer in Chicago Style at the bottom of the post.

Comment: (200 words)

Pick a post that analyzed a different episode of True Life

Find another illness narrative (youtube/website/blog/article, etc.) that reflects on the same medical condition as discussed in the true life episode your classmate chose – cite it and add a hyperlink to it.

Compare the experience of this patient to the ones described in the original post – what factors do you think influenced their experience (culture, family, gender, socio-economic status, etc.)